


Sense Memories

by DawnlitWaters



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Ficlet, First Time, Fluff, John turns to tea in a crisis, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, Pre-Slash, Sherlock needs to take better care of himself, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 14:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnlitWaters/pseuds/DawnlitWaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Contrary to popular belief, John has an excellent, if selective, memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Smell

He smells of the metallic tang of blood and the grey dirt of river water when they find him, soaked through with liberal amounts of both, on the bank of the Thames.

John has to be physically restrained, wild with disbelief, questions and the overriding medic’s urge to check that the former hasn’t come out of Sherlock’s veins and the latter hasn’t got into Sherlock’s lungs.

 

Detergent and disinfectant smother him in chloroform-like waves in the hospital, and John loses him under the all-consuming scents and anonymising blankets. He buries his face in Sherlock’s hair when he thinks no one is looking and tries to recognise a living, familiar person over the corpse-like scents of blood and bleach.

 

John’s flat smells cold and unwelcoming, like it always does, when he returns at 4am, aching with tiredness but too wired to attempt sleep. He hunches over a cup of tea and tells himself it’s fine, _It’s all fine, now._

 

221b Baker Street has been kept fresh and aired by an elderly woman who knew something John didn’t, if only as of two weeks ago. John inhales something more floral than _Kasbah Nights_ as she hugs him and weeps with joy into his shoulder.

 

Within a week, the whole place smells of iodine, old books and, inexplicably, passion fruit.

  
John smiles. Sherlock’s back.


	2. Sound

John had not imagined it would be like this.

Not once, not even once, in his most fevered fantasies, had it been anything like this.

He’d got the voice wrong, for a start. But then Sherlock is normally so controlled, so poised and so calm that imagining him giving voice to the feel of John’s thumbs stroking the sharp angle of his cheeks, John’s hands unbuttoning his shirt, or John’s fingertips splaying over his hips, had been impossible. It had remained undefined, a sound not-quite-heard in John’s head.

Sherlock’s voice goes rough and hoarse and deliciously breathless very quickly. It is higher than normal at the edges. It is cut short by suddenly nervous, uncertain smiles and Sherlock biting his lip to stop himself crying out. It is accompanied by soft, desperate moans that John coaxes to life in the back of Sherlock’s long pale throat; by shuddering, helpless breaths and soft, whispered invocations of John’s own name against his neck.

It is more hesitant, deferential. Willing to be led, drawn out or silenced by John’s mouth and hands. It is new and fragile and John treasures every broken syllable.

Sherlock’s voice says: ‘I’ve never really… done this before.’

Sherlock’s voice says: ‘John, I… please, I can’t, just –’

Sherlock’s voice says: ‘Oh God, yes’ and then they’re both laughing, breathlessly.


	3. Touch

_Didn’t get this right, either_ John thinks dully. He strokes a leisurely hand from the nape of Sherlock’s neck to the back of his thigh, detouring slightly to sweep over the lovely curve of his arse. Sherlock purrs into the pillow and shifts his folded arms, shrugging his shoulders and letting John watch the lean muscles move under his skin.

John rests his hand on the small of Sherlock’s back, feeling the warmth of his flesh, the firmness of his muscles and the sweeping curve of his spine. He hadn’t expected Sherlock to be curvy.

But Sherlock is, undeniably, curvy, and somehow manages to pull off being angular as well, which is sickening and paradoxical and so utterly in-keeping with the rest of him that John wants to cry or laugh with the joy of it.

Sherlock’s curves are in unexpected places. Convex lines over each of his hip bones.  Concave at the base of his skull, beneath the soft, downy curls at the nape of his neck. Convex and concave, in parallel, when he curls his toes in frustration or delight.

John’s favourite curves of all are, fittingly, also the most angular. Luckily also the ones he gets to see most often: the smooth sweep of Sherlock’s lower lip and the angular peaks of the upper – a perfect Cupid’s Bow.


	4. Sight

 

Sunlight diffuses through the curtains, and the familiar occupants of John’s room are cast in soft-focus sepia, a sleepy morning colour before the world awakes.

The walls look mustardy-yellow in shadow, pale lemon in the light. His books are a rainbow of greys, creams and sepias. Through the open door of the wardrobe John can see familiar shirts in unfamiliar shades – reds and blues now greys and blacks.

The _unfamiliar_ occupant of John’s room shifts position beside him: the fingers of his upturned hand flexing in sleep, the other sliding out across the sheets in an unconscious search. Finding nothing, its owner frowns.

Morning colours or not, it is far stranger to see Sherlock here at all, especially like this. The guardedness of sleep has smoothed away all expressions of hauteur, superiority and assurance. He is divested of his usual colours.

He looks innocent, as innocent as he actually is, it turns out. The rush of affection makes John giddy. He curls his fingers around the questing hand.

He looks and sees Sherlock as he really is: sleep unveiling his emotions, John’s sheets doing precious little to cover his form.

All except his eyes, John realises. He cannot see Sherlock’s eyes.

But that’s alright, John can wait. He remembers their colour well enough: intricate and lovely, a pale and delicate blue.


	5. Taste

 

It occurs to John, at a crime scene three days later, that he knows what Sherlock’s skin tastes like. Just there, on the side of his throat.

And there, on the line of his jaw.

There too, at the nape of his neck. And below, at each and every vertebra.

The thought is a distracting one, and John loses himself as Sherlock swirls and pivots around the victim, unconsciously stirring thoughts of places as yet unmapped. _His wrists, for a start_ , John thinks, as Sherlock reaches for a pendant and his shirt slips upward, _I haven’t paid nearly enough attention to his wrists._

 _Or his hands_ , as Sherlock lifts the large sapphire jewel between finger and thumb, _God those hands, what have I been doing?_

Two years ago, the Sherlock below the suits and shirts was just more suit and shirt, unknowable and untouchable and determined to remain so: the image of a person painted on a reasoning-machine.

Since then, he became an often-guessed-at vision of frustratingly-generic loveliness. The blurry angles born of fervent imagination.

Today, as Sherlock uncoils to stand, John recalls the taste of each slender limb and muscle, draws a map where he has travelled with lips, teeth and tongue.

He has to choke back an unthinking question when Sherlock asks for his professional opinion of the body.


End file.
